The centrepiece is a flashing mobile-phone sign on Martineau Lane, outside County Hall in Norwich.

The “mobile phone detection system”, designed by Dereham-based safety sign specialists, Westcotec, is a portable system and exclusive to Norfolk.

A signal-detector can tell if a mobile phone is being used for a phone call or to send a text while in the car and will flash up as the offending driver goes past.

It is designed as a deterrent rather than to catch offending drivers and will be moved about several locations in Norfolk in the months to come.

Iain Temperton, road safety manager at Norfolk County Council, added; “We have been trialing the MPDS at a number of locations in Norfolk and it’s proved to be a flexible and extremely useful piece of equipment that we’re now ready to roll out across the county.

“The system can’t detect whether it’s a passenger using a phone in a vehicle or whether a hands-free device is being used. But of course, those people don’t need to be worried if they get a flash from the sign.”

Norfolk Constabulary is warning that if drivers are caught using a mobile phone while behind the wheel they will be given a £60 fixed penalty notice and have their licence endorsed with three penalty points.

It is part of road safety group Think! Norfolk’s “fatal four” activities, which are: not wearing a seat belt, drink-driving, speeding and using a handheld device at the wheel.

Chief Insp Chris Spinks, head of the Norfolk and Suffolk Roads Policing Unit, said: “It is a difficult message to get across when people are so reliant on their phones.

“You can’t second guess the actions of other road users and therefore need to be alert and concentrating 100% to be in a position to deal with the unexpected.”

He added: “I welcome any innovations in technology which can be used alongside traditional methods to improve safety on our roads.”

Sally Plail, driver and rider development manager at Norfolk County Council, said: “When you have a conversation with someone you are using the same part of the brain which is used to spot hazards.”

The week-long enforcement exercise will take place across Norfolk and Suffolk starting tomorrow and involve marked and unmarked police vehicles as well as unmarked police HGVs to catch lorry drivers flouting the law.

Police in Norfolk have seen drivers of HGVs watching DVDs before when they use the HGV dummy to catch lorry drivers.

“No message is so important that you cannot wait a few minutes to park safely and check it,” Ms Plail said and added: “Mobile phones have their uses but not in vehicles.”

A total of 1,530 drivers have completed courses after being caught driving while using a mobile phone in the last 12 months.

In the five years to October 2014, 13,094 drivers in Norfolk have been issued with fixed penalty notices by police after being caught using a mobile phone while driving.

“The system can’t detect whether it’s a passenger using a phone in a vehicle or whether a hands-free device is being used. But of course, those people don’t need to be worried if they get a flash from the sign.” The copper are not going to worry about this. They will just carry on with their hounding and persecution of motorists as usual. Its going to be a laugh when a bus full of passengers, who are using their phones goes past it. Lets see what the keystone kops do about that ?.

Quote :Norfolk Constabulary is warning that if drivers are caught using a mobile phone while behind the wheel they will be given a £60 fixed penalty notice and have their licence endorsed with three penalty points.
It is actually £100 & 3 penalty points

“The system can’t detect whether it’s a passenger using a phone in a vehicle or whether a hands-free device is being used. But of course, those people don’t need to be worried if they get a flash from the sign.”
Norfolk Constabulary is warning that if drivers are caught using a mobile phone while behind the wheel they will be given a £60 fixed penalty notice and have their licence endorsed with three penalty points.
So if it can't determine who was using the phone, how is it fair to issue a ticket? What if the signal I'd confused for a text message being received or an app pushing data to the phone? If this can be answered, especially as to how it would be determined who was using the phone then fair enough, otherwise I can see this causing major problems.

It's good to Crack down on mobile phone uses ! I recently got a fine doing 35mph in a 30 zone on a country road it's was not a built up srea, but when I'm leaving for work in the morning s heading along the duel carriage way in great yarmouth in a 50 mp495 zone in a Hugh built up area with lives at risk! I see people driving 60 70 80 mph me being a professional driver I only see the police checking speed limits at off peak times WHY

Spoke to a Norfolk police constable and he tells me that they have been told by superiors to not routinely stop people for using their mobile phone. Only to use it as a second offence if they are doing something else, like speeding etc.

We are being asked to contribute more to the policing of Norfolk but increasingly all we are getting for our money are electronic devices of one sort or another. Speed cameras, cctv, flashing speed signs etc etc. What we want is the return to real police officers patrolling our roads. You can travel from one side of the county to the other and not see a police officer. I am getting rather annoyed that we are being asked to come up with even more money towards the police budget to pay for an increase in cyber crime. If some idiot wants to engage in making rude remarks on social media then the recipient should ignore such rubbish and not go running to the police to complain. The police in turn seem to put such nonsense at the top of their list of priorities instead of getting on and dealing with the bread and butter issues.

Would love the EDP to investigate these signs. Having seen one in use at North Walsham for several months I think the work about as well as the famous Iraqi "bomb detectors". If Norfolk taxpayers are (in any way) contributing money towards these things then there should be a proper investigation into whether they work at all.

"A signal-detector can tell if a mobile phone is being used for a phone call or to send a text while in the car and will flash up as the offending driver goes past."
How?? My bet is that this a deliberate attempt to mislead the public.
To detect a mobile system in use is simple, as it simply requires a receiver that activates when a signal on a mobile phone frequency & of a certain strength is detected. But to place the signal is much less easy & would require some form of direction finding equipment to be included in the sign & that is much more expensive & sophisticated & would require several antennas, which the sign clearly does not have.
Plus using a mobile phone in a vehicle is not an offence. only using a device capable of being used as a mobile phone (such as an Police Airwave radio for example) & when driving & without a hands free kit.

Mobile phones, seat belts, drinking and driving, red diesel you name it but no notice or action is taken over vehicles with defective headlights! Seeing one light approaching - is it a motorcycle at the side of the carriageway or one in the centre? Sometimes you can see the glimmer of a parking light sometimes not even that. This problem is potentially so dangerous but no notice appears to be taken or is it too difficult as the police would have to get out of their car..

A gimmick to give the impression that something is done, as accidents are increasingly from this cause of negligence to the general public. I'm not sure whether hands free sets should be treated different, they still distract from the focus on driving, future accident figures will show.

Until our legislators treat mobile-driving as seriously as drink-driving, motorists will continue to put others at risk of injury or death. The police can only apply the law as it is and a slap on the wrist isn't much of a deterrent. So, MPs, are you listening? Sadly, I doubt it.

Pointless waste of time, not improving safety at all, why don't Norfolk Constabulary have somewhere people who have dash cams can send recordings of people on their phones whilst driving?? I guess that would mean doing some work.

On numerous occasions I've been past this sign and it's flashed, yet nobody in the vehicle was using their phone.
If it's going to flash simply because your phone is trying to get a signal, it's making false accusations that the driver is braking the law.
If it's not flashing because of that, it's not very reliable.

@ykims - Quite so. If there is no direct identification, stop of, or penalty for offenders, it's unlikely to deter anybody; especially now that its purely "informational" nature has been flagged up in the media.